Meryl Dorey is attempting to spin this as "it's what I wanted all along". #stopAVN has news for her. You don't want this, Meryl. You've turned the PR environment around Woodford's Annual festival into a toxic sludge and now you're going to get called out on every lie you make. Have fun.

Meryl Dorey of the Australian Vaccination Network is back on the bill at the Woodford Folk Festival. Meryl Dorey has repeatedly and wilfully demonstrated herself incapable of providing accurate information on vaccination, even when corrected. Her appearance at Woodford, then, is a clear and present danger to public health.

Up to 130,000 people - many of them impressionable young families - will be attending the festival, so this is a potential disaster for public health in the region, as well as a PR nightmare for the sponsors and the festival as an ongoing concern.

The background on the story can be found over at the blog, but there's plenty of other coverage

UPDATE: Organiser Bill Hauritz has responded to Mama Mia - and he's entirely unapologetic, as well as being quite a long way down the rabbit hole. Read the fail here

Note: This is not a free speech issue. Meryl Dorey has a right to her opinions (if not her own facts). However for her to be presented, inaccurately, as an "expert" and then given a privileged platform and a microphone is a major problem. Her information is debunked, repeatedly and thoroughly. She is known to be disastrously wrong about vaccination. She should not be presented as an expert.

I just followed up my own letter to Woodford organisers (at 12:15pm 13 Dec) with:

Just a quick note to let you know I'm still waiting for a response. The outcry on the web and in social media is growing, and Tracey Spicer has just taken the story to radio. You need to make a good and firm PR response as soon as possible, because all the indications are that this will grow.

Jason I have still not received an email response from the Woodford organisers as of 21 Dec 2011

With regard to the 1 in 38 statistic, this is cherry-picked from a South Korean study and can probably be considered a statistical outlier, or a study artifact, since it's only a single study which leaps from previous estimates quite dramatically (reputable analysis here). The Actual Australian rate is around 1 in 160, as determined by Swinburne University. (Thanks Paul Gallagher for digging this up).

Prediction 1: Dorey will "confuse" parts per million and parts per billion - a difference factor of 1000 - when she mentions mercury in her talk. You can take that one to the bank, since she's done it before, been corrected, then done it again shortly afterwards

Prediction 2: Dorey will "defend" the discredited (for fraud) former Doctor Andrew Wakefield, and repeat the canard that MMR a) causes autism and b) contains mercury. It doesn't and it never did

She, through the organisation she runs as her own personal fiefdom, is subject to an unprecedented NSW HCCC public warning

NSW OLGR removed her group's charitable status due to serious irregularities, some of which were referred to law enforcement. Her group's finances are under severe scrutiny, especially as the group's bi-monthly magazine has fallen woefully short of its advertised six issues per year for the last few years.

Supporters of this campaign booked to attend Woodford should consider one of two options:

Decline to attend

Attend and participate in action

I'm of the opinion that attending and participating in action is the way to go. We will need boots on the ground to monitor Dorey's talk for the inevitable lies and deception, and to report them back to the appropriate authorities

It may also be useful for well-enough informed attendees to challenge Meryl in Q & A - but be aware you do need to be well informed

We also need volunteer monitors to keep an eye on appeals for funding. Dorey is banned from making public appeals for funding by the NSW OLGR. This event is in QLD, however QLD authorities would be most interested to hear NSW orders being breached across state borders. We need volunteers to retain any flyers handed out by Dorey, and to capture any public appeals on film (if legally possible - do not breach any laws to obtain footage). If we cannot stop Dorey disseminating her nonsense, we can challenge it, and make it difficult for her to get away with it unscathed.

At all times, stay civil, stay factual, be considered, and be better than the other guy. And if you can, have fun and be friendly to the public. People at protests with too much serious face end up looking like deranged cultists.

For those in the area who do not have tickets, @skeptimite has expressed an interest in some action at or around the site, which I'm hoping to have more information on soon.